Last Friday night, the eve of the Jewish Sabbath, a Palestinian terrorist slipped into the home of the Fogel family in the Samarian Jewish community of Itamar and butchered five members of the family.
The terrorist broke in through a living room window and proceeded to a nearby bedroom where he slashed the throats of Uri Fogel and his three-month-old Hadas. Ruth, the mother, was apparently in the bathroom but was murdered as returned to the bedroom where she would have looked on the bodies of her husband and daughter. The killer then murdered 11-year-old Yoav and stabbed three-year-old Elad twice in the heart.
The terrorist missed He missed eight-year-old Roi, who was sleeping on the couch in the living room, two-year-old Shai and 12-year-old Tamar who returned from the home of a friend after the attack was over.
The Israeli army immediately launched a manhunt for the perpetrator and any possible accomplices but announced that, due to the extreme severity of the attack, the operation would be “blue-and-white” only, meaning Israel would not be working with Palestinian security forces.
In the past, Palestinian terrorists who were caught first by Palestinian police spent a short time in jail before being released to resume their attacks on Israelis. The IDF is determined that the butcher of the Fogel family will not be given that luxury.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad issued condemnations of the attack and reiterating that they are against all violence that targeted civilians, while at the same time trying to draw a parallel between the slaughter of the Fogel family and Israeli anti-terror military operations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu noted that while Abbas and Fayyad say what they must for international consumption, it is the anti-Jewish incitement they permit and even facilitate in Palestinian society that leads to such atrocities.
“A society that allows wild incitement like this, leads to the murder of children,” said Netanyahu. Palestinian television, schoolbooks and performances regularly demonise the Jews, while summer camps and public squares are named after the most successful of Palestinian terrorists.
A group affiliated with Abbas’ own Fatah faction later came forward and claimed responsibility for the attack. The group, known as the Al Aqsa Brigades, released a statement calling the brutal slaughter of the Fogel family a “natural response” to “Israeli crimes.”
In cold, unsympathetic tones the statement referred to the killer as a “combatant” who “killed all five Zionists who were in the house” and then “returned home safely after conducting his mission successfully.”
The Fogel family has given permission for photographs of the scene to be posted and redistributed online to show people around the world the cruelty with which Jews are targeted in their own homeland. The pictures can be viewed at Picasaweb but – be warned – they are brutal and graphic:
No comments:
Post a Comment